Wracking Our Brains

Dr. Mercer said that we should expect that it would take John a full calendar year to catch up to where he was when he went in for surgery. Surgery was November 15th through the night to the 16th and this is just June 25th, a mere 7 months and 10 days later and Mark and I are wracking our brains trying to remember what John could do before he went for transplant that he can't do now. Funny Dr. Mercer's peers seem to think that he tends to be unrealistically optimistic at times, seems to me like they need to give him a break :)

Outside is Home Too!

For years I haven't had the energy to do much more than take care of John, make sure he had meds and such, and read him some books. Since changing diet and giving up grains I find that I have more and more energy as the days go by and lately have started planting things outside, I have found my love for outside again. I love to see the little flowers and the butterflies, the bees and all the different leaves and such and so end up spending a good bit of each day outside. Poor John, he is 7 and his mommy just now wants to be outside and he just isn't sure that outside is home too. But every time he gets a chance to play in the dirt he is happy to be outside too :)



This is the box garden on the front of the house, constructed so that it was the right height for John to play in too. Underneath of it is the beginnings of a whole bunch of flowers that my mom sent me for Mother's Day in a roll, and the mum from Mark's mom's funeral and in the bottom right side of the picture you can see the sunflowers that Mark and John planted.



Our friends son did a lot of hard work helping us to remove the bushes in the front of the house. In their place is one of my all time favorite bushes, a little snowball bush growing bit by bit every day to fill our bedroom window with it's beautiful flowers, meanwhile around it is also cantaloupe to fill the space this summer and hopefully provide some yummy stuff too!



John loves to play in the dirt and he was enjoying himself enough today to stay and play even after I had finished adding some new plants. The side will eventually be full of flowers and elephant ears and will make me smile just to see it, today John makes me smile, well okay every day he does that.





Along the back are more flowers, Columbines which remind me of my beloved mountains, and others that draw hummingbirds and butterflies, my hope is that as they grow up John's window will always have a delight of life teeming right outside of it.



One last picture of the boy who was having so much fun in the dirt and one of my favorite flowers. I am so thankful that we have found this way for me to have more energy to enjoy more of life and to enjoy more of John too, now if the poor kid can ever get it through his head that outside is home too, we'll know that I've finally hung around out there long enough, nah, there's always another place to plant another flower :)

Chocolate Makes Me Smile

But not quite as much as chocolate on my guys makes me smile. John has been eating some at every meal, just a few bites at each but that is a huge big deal for him. Today I made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and John just loved it, well the frosting anyway. He was having such a good time and ended up with chocolate all over his face, he was even more delighted when daddy rubbed some chocolate on his own face to take a picture with him.

Fireworks Parts 2 and 3

John has been enjoying art so much, so have I. Here he is with the papers that we painted to makes the fireworks themselves with.



The next day we cut them into bits and I asked if he wanted to take a picture with them, he did, but the silly thing didn't realize we would want to see his face too :)

First Day of School

John missed so much school this past year that we decided it would be best for him to get to do school through the summer, and yes I said 'get' instead of 'have'. John enjoys school for the most part and has shown more patience for it today than when we were doing school last year. I think part of that is just maturity, it also helps that he is not sick and in pain. John likes school, consequently so do we. Of course we did the Three R's, but what fun would school be without an art project, so inspired by this art project we are working on a fireworks picture, fireworks being one of John's favorite activities and more boy than poppies.



He was very insistent that we take a picture of the art work itself, which of course is no where near accomplished but still, he was ready to share it today, so here he is and here is his pictures we are working on.



I had toyed with doing some specific fine motor skill work, but decided that drill and kill is no fun, and so instead we are practicing writing and painting and the next days will bring cutting and tracing and all that stuff that will help him get his hands working better. We are both looking forward to what the days of school ahead hold.

The Promise of Life

I bought this parsley plant because of the nice big caterpillar crawling on it in hopes that we would be able to watch it become a moth or butterfly. It was only a few days after I brought it home that I was worried the little thing had died cause it was so still and then the next morning found this...



John and Mark were both mildly interested, I was excited because of course it's science/nature stuff. One afternoon I was getting ready to make supper and the fluttering caught my eye, voila, the promise of life was revealed and a beautiful butterfly was trying to get out of our window. I wish that I could have watched escape it's crysalyis, but getting to see it fly free outside was amazing and we will definitely be doing this again. Now of course to identify the butterfly, more fun!

Filthy Little Boy

The pictures don't show the extent of it, but after playing in the dirt helping daddy plant flowers and then chasing the dog back and forth through the backyard and other fun stuff John was filthy and needed a bath before bed. It is just so very cool that he was really dirty, from really playing and having a good time!

Another John's Eye View

I love seeing the world through John's eyes, I am looking forward to the day that I'm brave enough to let him take my camera outside, but for today I have these.